Negative SEO: Attack & Defense

Black Hat/White Hat: Negative SEO

Intro to Negative SEO

• Penalizing your opponents• Not talked about enough

Analogies

Jim: 10 race carsGarret: 10 houses on a blockGarret: Worse than a hackCade: Like not buying the full page adFlyers for painter

Business Disruption

Hacking is short-term

SERPs are longterm

Ethics & Morality

In war, are all bets off?

Do you have different rules when you are under attack?

Yesterday’s guidelines are today’s penalties

Legality

FraudSlander/LibelTortious Interference?

1st amendment?digital picket sign

Proof?Are these bad links?!Can you sue Google to take you from page 1?Who are the expert witnesses?

Anchortext

- Heavy focus / keywords- Bad words- Bad targets

- Defense: Monitor & Disavow(Monitor with Google alerts, yahoo alerts, mention.com, monitorbacklinks.com)

Known Link Networks

- Text Link Ads- Link Worth- Intellinks- Link Vehicle- Buildmyrank.com

- Defense: Monitor & Disavow

Link removal attack

- Contact webmasters of authority sites- Angry, Threaten legal action- Fake Link Removal Service

- Defense: RelationshipsMonitorbacklinks.com

302 redirects

- URL shorteners: tinyurl- Offsite linking- (old msn bowling technique)

- Defense: Authority(Monitor with Moz)

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-manual-action-302-links-18727.html

DNS(A records) of banned sites

- Get deindexed- DNS attack- Free DNS- Cade: Social engineering / domain hijacking- Garret: hotmail lost

- Defense: Authority

Google suggest reputation

- Use proxies for volume- Randomize user agents- Mechanical Turk

- Defense: Strength & variety of suggestions

Duplicate content attack

- CGI proxies- Parameters- Cross domain canonicals- Inbound links

- Defense: Canonical tags, Search Friendly URLsMonitor with copyscape.com

Email attack

- Black list / DNSBL- Unsubscribe- From- We buy/sell links (send to Google!)

- Defense?

Email attack

Google / Yelp Review attack

- Manual library / coffeeshop- Build trusted profiles- Mix with Reddit reputation attack

- Defense: Build profiles proactivelyRequest removal of bad reviews (never hurts)

Map attack

- NAP citation confusion attack- Claim & close

- Defense: Claim & build citations

Server DDOS attack

- Hackerslist.com- $300 xbox hackers- Report site as down

- Defense: CloudflareMonitor uptime with pingdom.com

Ripoff reputation sites

- Inbound links, tier 3- Get good reviews ranked on a bad site

- Ripoffreport, scamclub, complaintsboard

- Defense?

Badware reputation attack

- Macafee, webroot, et al

- Defense: Monitor & resubmit

Content Marketing For Evil

- Slideshare, at al

- Defense: Claim your branded properties

DMCA complaints

- google- host- Registrar- Trademarked domains

- Defense: Relationships, Lawyers

Reddit reputation attack

- Austin- LGBT- Use viral petitions, get them ranked!

- Defense: Build your brand/culture now.

Comments / html injection

- no index (reputation.com)- canonicals,- infecting a site with display messages like

‘This site may harm your computer’

- Defense: Secure programming, updates

Outright illegal hacking

- WMT & reinclusion requests, change address, deindexation

- Passwords- Insecure site/ CMS/ plugin

- Defense: Security, updates, passwords

Facebook Page

- - Get fake users- - Report

- Defense: Good numbers of real users

Business disruption

- Job listings- Online resumes- Hire staff away

- Defense: Trust